


Five Times Alexis and James Didn't Meet

by kitlee625



Category: Castle, Law & Order
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-18
Updated: 2013-03-18
Packaged: 2017-12-05 18:19:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/726368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitlee625/pseuds/kitlee625
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Alexis Castle did not meet James McCoy-Kincaid. Part of the same universe as my other story Family Ties.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in an alternate universe in which Law&Order and Castle exist in the same New York, and in which Claire Kincaid did not die in a car accident, but rather got married to Jack McCoy and had a son. By my calculations their son would be almost the same age as Alexis Castle, and so I'm playing a little fictional Manhattan matchmaking. A companion piece to my other story Family Ties (also a work in progress).

“Don't let go of my hand,” Jack McCoy warns his son as they stand in line to get tickets for the Museum of Natural History. It is a rainy fall Sunday afternoon, and he has never seen the museum so crowded.

Next to him, James McCoy-Kincaid, age seven, is almost wiggling out of his skin with excitement. He has been begging his parents to take him to the Museum of Natural History for a month, ever since his class trip.

“Okay Dad! I want to see the dinosaurs!” he shouts to be heard above the roar of the crowd.

Jack McCoy rubs his right temple. He can feel a migraine coming on. He would've rather spent the rainy day watching cartoons in the apartment, but the look on James's face when he told him they would have to put off the museum trip almost broke his heart. He looks around for a water fountain so he can take a sumatriptan.

“Sure James, we'll go see them as soon as I get the tickets. And some water.” The person ahead of them in line moves away from the window, and Jack steps up. He winces as he looks at the table of admission prices. Ever since his last birthday buying tickets has become a new form of humiliation.

“1 child, 1 senior,” he says. He almost chokes on the last word – how can he be a senior if he has a seven year old son.

The woman at the booth just takes his money and hands him the stickers that they will wear on their shirts. Jack sticks one on James's sweater and one on his own. 

“All right, let's go find those dinosaurs.”

They wind their way through the crowds. Jack is careful not to let go of James's hand no matter how hard he squirms and tries to pull away. Every case he prosecutes reminds him of James, and they just had a case where a child was kidnapped in a movie theater when his parents lost sight of him for a minute. At last they find the hall of dinosaurs, and James is ecstatic.

“Dad! Dad! Look at the dinosaurs!” he shouts, and Jack's migraine throbs. 

“I see them James,” he says lamely. He pulls a migraine pill out of his pocket and swallows it without water, praying that it will take effect faster that way. Jack lets his son drag him from exhibit to exhibit chattering non-stop about all the dinosaurs. Finally though his head is pounding too hard for him to keep going, and his vision is starting to go blurry.

“James, hey James, let's sit down for a minute. I'm not feeling that well.” He must look almost as bad as he feels because James doesn't protest as Jack leads them over to sit on a bench. 

His little face is creased with worry. “Are you okay, Dad?” 

“I'm fine. I just have a headache. It'll pass in a minute.”

“Do you want me to get you some water?” James asks.

Jack is still afraid of what might happen if he lets his son out of his sight. “No, we'll just sit a minute. Here,” he pats the bench next to him, “sit down next to me.”

James sits down but swings his feet impatiently and looks all around the room. Across the room he sees a flash of red flying through the air. It takes him a minute to realize that it's a little girl about his own age, and the red is her hair. Her dad has picked her up and is carrying her on his shoulders and growling. They are both growling, James realizes, as if they are dinosaurs. The girl is tossing her hair around and laughing between dinosaur roars. A security guard comes up to the pair, but they start to run around the room while the officer chases after them.

Jack sees the father and daughter running around, groans, and rubs his temples. James can't help but compare this dad, goofing off with his kid, with his own dad, who looks like he's trying not to throw up. James turns away. Now another security guard has come up and is dragging the father and daughter out of the museum. The girl and her dad are laughing, and the sound of it fills up the exhibit hall.

Jack sighs. He's feeling a little bit better. Maybe the migraine medicine is kicking it. He stands and feels confident that he's not going to pass out. “All right James, ready? Have we seen the triceratops yet?”

James turns to his dad. He looks a little less queasy and holds out his hand. James grabs it. “No, it's over there Dad.” He points to where the man and the girl were dancing around earlier, and they walk over together.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alexis and Claire meet in the library.

Alexis Castle is in the New York Public Library the first time she gets her period. Sitting in the bathroom stall, staring at her underwear which now has a weird brownish substance streaking it, she wants to cry. The books she has read on the subject prepared her for it not to look red like blood, but they can't prepare her for how she feels to get her first period.

She knows that she should tell her dad – she can tell him anything – but somehow she doesn't know how. Besides, she thinks practically, right now the only issue is that she needs a pad. She doesn't have one in her backpack, and she knows her dad doesn't either.

She starts to sniffle a little and feels embarrassed to be crying over something so natural.

“It's not a big deal,” she says to herself.

“Are you okay?” a voice outside the stall asks. “What's not a big deal?”

Alexis almost falls off the toilet in surprise. “N-nothing,” she stammers, “I'm fine.”

“Are you sure?” the voice asks. The voice is a warm and friendly. “Do you need something?”

Alexis finds the courage to ask, “Do you have a pad?” She tries to pass it off as a casual query, as if this is something that she has done a thousand times, but she can feel that her cheeks are burning red.

“Hmm,” the voice says. She can hear the woman rummaging around her purse. “Sorry, I don't. Hang on a second, they have one of those machines in here.” There is the sound of a metallic chink, and then Alexis sees a hand extending a single pad underneath the stall door. She grabs it.

“Is that okay?”

“Thanks.” It takes Alexis several minutes to figure out how to open it and apply it to her underwear. She gets cleaned up and emerges from the bathroom to find a dark haired woman standing at the sink.

“Feeling better?” the woman asks, and Alexis realizes that this is the voice.

Alexis nods.

The woman glances over at her like she wants to say something but doesn't. She leaves the bathroom, and Alexis splashes some water on her face so her dad doesn't notice her puffy eyes and red nose.

Outside the bathroom she sees the woman standing with a man and a boy about her age. The boy looks like a younger, ganglier version of the man. Alexis assumes that this must be the woman's family.

“Come on Mom,” the boy says, “the video store's going to close soon.”

She puts her arm around her son and moves to kiss his forehead, but he immediately wiggles away. 

“Mom!” he hisses, aghast. “You're embarrassing me.”

“Yeah Claire,” the man says chuckling, “quit embarrassing the boy.”

“Well you two are embarrassing me,” she says as they walk out of the library.

Alexis watches the family walk away, and the first time in a long time feels sad. She has never felt like she's missed out on anything with her dad. Her dad is the best dad in the world. Maybe it's that she's just gotten her first period, or maybe it's something deeper. But for the first time in a long time she wishes that she had a mom to go home to too.


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castle and McCoy meet in the park.

It is the first day that remotely feels like spring, and Richard Castle takes advantage of the nice weather to take Alexis to Central Park. He bundles up his two-year-old daughter and puts her in her stroller to walk the park. When he gets outside though he realizes that the sunshine is a lie. It feels almost as cold as it did when it was sleeting earlier in the week. He is about to head home, which he notices how happy Alexis looks to be outside, grabbing the air with her fat fists and giggling. Maybe it isn't just dads who go stir crazy in an apartment all winter.

“All right, we can go for a short walk,” he tells her.

They head for the park where the paths are mostly empty. A few devoted runners are out, but otherwise Alexis and Richard stroll together uninterrupted. He tells her stories, about dragons and princesses, and giggles and chatters in her stroller. 

They reach a small fountain, and Richard decides to let Alexis out of the stroller so she can stretch her legs. She immediately starts running around the fountain in these weird spirals, what she calls dancing. Richard loves to watch her run – he loves to watch Alexis do anything. She is the most amazing thing he has ever seen, and somehow she's his.

Too late he realizes that she is running towards the only other two people at the fountain, a man and a little boy. They are sitting on the edge of the fountain tossing stones in the water and watching the ripples spread across the water. Richard tries to get Alexis's attention, but she slams into the little boy almost sending him sailing into the fountain. Luckily the man catches him before he goes under.

The man picks up the little boy. He looks around the park and spots Richard running towards them.

“Hey!” he shouts, “is this your kid?”

“Yeah, I am so sorry about that,” Richard says. “Alexis is just high spirited.”

“You should keep a closer eye on her,” the man says. He is glaring at Richard as if he wants to say more but is holding back.

“I'm sorry,” Richard says, “it was an accident. She didn't mean to run into your grandson.”

The man's eyes narrow. The man has salt and pepper hair and a huge dark grey parka. Despite his middle aged appearance, Richard wonders if this man is going to hit him.

“He's my son,” the man says coldly.

Richard looks sheepish. “I'm sorry again?”

The man stands. “Keep a closer eye on your daughter,” he says as he walks a few paces and sits down with his son on a park bench. The boy has his head buried in the man's coat. Richard wonders if he's crying.

Richard grabs Alexis's hand and this time walks with her as she dances around the fountain tossing leaves, twigs, and bits of gravel into the water. She looks like she is conducting an ancient rite, perhaps trying to summon the spirit of spring, Richard thinks. 

A few minutes later a woman, perhaps his age, runs up to the man and little boy.

“Did you have a good run?” the man asks.

“It was good,” she says only slightly out of breath, “what's wrong with James?”

Richard can make out a few words from where he's standing, “Little girl … ran into him … okay … just scared … almost fell in.”

The woman ruffles the little boy's hair. “Poor little guy. Why don't we go home and warm up?” The man stands up, balancing the little boy on his hip. The woman asks him, “What's wrong with you?”

Richard can't quite make out the man's voice, but after whatever he says the woman pulls him close and kisses him. Then they walk hand in hand out of the park.

Richard watches them leave with a cold lump in his chest. It's only been a few months since Meredith packed her bags and moved out for good. He wonders if it will always be just him and Alexis or if someday he'll find someone to do this with.

“Daddy, cold,” Alexis's little voice pipes up.

“Okay Alexis. Let's go get some hot chocolate, how does that sound? With marshmallows and whipped cream … mmm!”

Alexis claps her hands in excitement, and Richard puts her back in her stroller and pushes her out of the park.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you like these. Please read/review!


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